Sauces and condiments

Also called ซอสพริกศรีราชา, sriracha sauce, Si Racha sauce.

Sriracha is a Thai chilli sauce from Si Racha in Chonburi, made from ground red chillies with garlic, vinegar, sugar and salt. Some recipes ferment the chillies first to deepen the taste. In one home method chopped chillies sit under salt brine for one to two weeks, then are simmered with garlic, sugar and vinegar and blended.

1. Chop the chillies
2. Cover with salt brine and ferment7–14 days
3. Simmer with garlic, sugar and vinegar5–10 min
4. Blend, strain and bottle

Safety: The recipe gives no pH target and no storage advice for the bottled sauce. The NCHFP says botulism bacteria grow and make toxin in moist, airless food with a pH above 4.6, at room temperature and above 40 °F (4 °C), and that some types grow a little cooler. It names fermented vegetables that do not finish at a truly acidic pH as a risk. It says botulism spores surviving a baked potato's heat is to be expected, and that low-acid food needs a canner reaching at least 240 °F. No source we read says the recipe's 5–10 minute simmer removes the risk. This page's advice, because the recipe sets no pH, is that a bottled sauce not measured at 4.6 or below should go in the refrigerator, not stand at room temperature. The NCHFP says other problems can occur even in more acid salsas, so a pH reading does not clear the sauce of every risk.

• Chonburi Provincial Office of Agriculture and Cooperatives (Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives), local wisdom sheet, Sriracha chilli sauce (ซอสพริกศรีราชา), 2026
• Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute, University of California Irvine, Fermented Sriracha Sauce (recipe sheet), 2024
• Sriraja Panich (ThaiTheparos PLC), maker's Heritage and FAQ pages, English and Thai versions (a producer's own account; the Thai FAQ page also carries unrelated gambling spam)
• National Center for Home Food Preservation, Botulism, Think Outside the Jar (blog)

Also called ទឹកត្រី, tik trei, teuk trey, Cambodian fish sauce, Kampot fish sauce.

Anchovies are mixed with coarse salt in large wooden vats and left for months, up to two years at one Kampot maker, while the fish break down into a clear brown sauce. The liquid is drawn off, and Wikipedia describes a final ripening in jars in the sun.

1. Mix the fish with salt in wooden vats
2. Ferment in the vatsup to 2 years
3. Draw off the liquid
4. Ripen in jars in the sun

Safety: Codex requires fish sauce to hold at least 200 g/L salt and no more than 40 mg histamine per 100 g, and to be made from fish fit to sell fresh. Cambodia's fish sauce standard (CS 005:2003) is mandatory, but a 2015 UNIDO review found that it did not set a histamine limit.

• Gillett R. 2004, The marine fisheries of Cambodia, FAO/FishCode Review No. 4, FAO, Rome, section 7 (processing and marketing)
• UNIDO 2015, assessment of Cambodian standards for fish and fishery products (lists CS 005:2003 Fish sauce, mandatory, and its 2014 draft revision)
• Codex Alimentarius Commission, Standard for Fish Sauce, CXS 302-2011 (amended 2012, 2013), FAO/WHO
• Hom Phanet 2021, 'Kampot Fish Sauce' mulled as possible geographical indication product, Phnom Penh Post, 31 December 2021 (via Asia News Network)
• Wikipedia, Fish sauce (Cambodia section; outline only)

Also called tương, tương Bần, tương Cự Đà, tuong ban, tuong cu da, Vietnamese soybean sauce.

Steamed glutinous rice is left on trays until a yellow mould covers it, while roasted, ground soybeans soak in water in a jar until they turn sweet. The two are mixed with salt in clay jars and set in the sun for weeks, stirred often, into a thick dipping sauce.

1. Grow the rice mould (mốc)2–3 days
2. Roast, grind and soak the soybeans7 days
3. Mix with salt and ferment in the sun15–30 days

• Shurtleff W., Aoyagi A., History of Miso and Soybean Jiang, Soyinfo Center (online chapter; summarises Bùi Quang Chiêu 1905 and Hoang Van Chi 1981)
• VietnamPlus (Vietnam News Agency), Tương Bần Hưng Yên, từ nghề truyền thống đến sinh kế bền vững, 14 October 2026